Heartless

And I continue to get more perturbed by the day. This time we hear of clashes between Palestinians and Israeli armed forces, dreadful reports of children caught in crossfire, swine flu on the rise, police spying on facebook accounts, a Nazareth girl splashed with acid on her face by a spurned lover twice her age ....

Police confiscating woman's
goods into a police van

The police continue to be hardhanded with bedouin hawkers at Damascus Gate. I saw a bedouin woman's goods (several bags) were confiscated and put into a police van while she screamed and protested and cried. She tried grabbing some bags back but was shoved back. She slapped a police man but he just ignored her. I think she lost several thousand shekels worth of goods.

Inside the Gate, panic all around. Other bedouin hawkers were grabbing their wares, running, asking nearby shops to help hide their goods ... I think it's a terrible shame. Arabs have been buying and selling at Damascus Gate for over 1000 years, and before them Romans, Greeks, Jews .... Damascus Gate has been a market place ever since Jerusalem was a city ... thousands of years ago. The new police chief and his heavy handed policy to make life difficult for arabs is a shame. The bedouins may not have a license; but what is the crime for selling parsley, mint and cucumbers? It's all so heartless for these old women who travels for miles just to sell some veggies.